Over the years...

Age, I suppose, is accumulating years and years of reading in your head, wondering how much of it has been lost under the huge barrage of new information collected over time, until one day you recognize Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson in a flash in a random line in a short story even though no references are given - " What is an Indian? Is it a boy who can sing the body electric or a woman who could not stop for death?"*

*'The Toughest Indian in the World'
Sherman Alexie

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Age, I suppose, is also listening to a young person pour out her anger and anguish and also hear what she is not saying, and having the grace to not show that you know, because you realize that she is not yet ready to talk about it, and youth, being what it is, needs to save its face, its so very vulnerable face....

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And yet again, age is also answering the most stupid of questions with kindness without Ever showing any sign of contempt or ridicule, because there are different kinds of knowledge and as long as we are curious we are getting somewhere, and in the end, not knowing the Big Bang theory is just not as catastrophic as not knowing how to care....